This invention relates generally to an apparatus to facilitate the paintless removal of dents in the bodies of vehicles, and more particularly to a novel paintless dent removal (“PDR”) hand tool having a unique configuration that improves access to hard-to-reach areas of the vehicle body and minimizes damage to the vehicle's access ports during the dent removal operation.
In the PDR industry, the repair shop relies upon the pliability and resilience of the body surface paint to flex sufficiently to allow the dent to return substantially to its original shape without blistering or peeling. This approach enables the repair shop to correct dents without the need for cutting, replacing and refinishing or puttying and refinishing body panels. The cost savings of PDR over such aggressive procedures is considerable.
More specifically, for PDR, it is common practice to utilize specially designed hand tools to reach into vehicle body compartments to push out or relieve a body dent from the inside outward. These PDR tools are traditionally configured with a metal handle or grip from which extends a metal rod or stem with a short tip opposite the handle that extends angularly away from the stem. The stem segment may be linear from handle to tip, or in some instances may have one or more relatively acute bends between handle and grip. The tip and stem segments of the tool are thread through inner access ports in the vehicle body such that the tip can reach and press against the inner surface of a dent to thereby enable the tool to exert pressure from the inside of the body to remove the dent.
Unfortunately, while traditional PDR tools are offered in a wide variety of lengths and a variety of various combinations of one or more sharp or acute bends along the length of the stem segments, they nonetheless have significant shortcomings. First, because the stem segments are comprised of one or more straight lengths, traditional PDR tools in practice have difficulty in reaching deep into side channels or other such body compartment areas to reach dents that could otherwise be removed by PDR, and in particular in vehicle hoods and trunk lids. Further, such traditional configurations suffer in the limited amount of torque that can be applied through the tool to the dent. In addition, due to their shapes and configurations, traditional PDR tools often impart damage to the body access ports through which they are positioned during the dent removal operation as the user twists and turns the tool in and against the access port for leverage to exert force at the tip end of the tool.
It would therefore be desirable to have a simple PDR hand tool that could repair hard-to-reach dents in areas of a vehicle body that traditional PDR tools cannot access or have difficulty accessing, with the ability to apply more torque to dents during the dent removal process. It would also be desirable to have a simple PDR hand tool that could repair vehicle body dents while reaching the dents through body access ports without causing damage to the ports. As will become evident in this disclosure, the present invention provides such benefits over the existing art.
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